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Reading in the Literacy Hour

Children need to be able to use a range of strategies so that they can elicit the meaning of the text and become fluent readers. These strategies can be illustrated as 'searchlights', each one shedding light on the text. Successful readers need to be able to 'switch on' as many of these searchlights as possible. Teaching in the Literacy Hour provides opportunities for teachers to model and for children to practise using the searchlights.

In shared reading, you should demonstrate and explain how the searchlights work in practice. By reading from a range of real texts written in different forms, children build up their knowledge of context, eg. how a traditional tale begins and ends; how to read headings and captions to find your way around a non-fiction text etc. You should demonstrate how a fluent reader uses phonics, sight words and grammatical knowledge as they are reading to work out unfamiliar words, eg. by masking a word and reading on to see what would make sense, then checking the word by looking at the initial and final phonemes.

During word- and sentence-level sessions, there is specific teaching that will help children to learn about the phonic and grammatical knowledge searchlights, eg. children learn how to identify phonemes and then blend them to read words as part of phonic games.

Children have the opportunity to apply such skills as they read independently. This learning is scaffolded for particular groups in guided reading sessions. Teachers reinforce particular strategies, and then monitor them as children read the text independently, prompting, supporting and praising individuals.